Enough !! Enough of those headlines saying "Obama Overruled Lawyers on Libya" -- as though he is some rogue president going his own way and against all legal advice.
What this is about is whether the War Powers Resolution concerns what we are doing in Libya and whether it requires the president to get the approval of Congress for what we're doing.
John Boehner and Republicans say it is covered and he must come to Congress. President Obama says no, it is not covered -- because we do not have troops on the ground or in harm's way. Our continuing participation seems to be limited to surveillance and attacks by unmanned drones -- as we're doing in Pakistan.
Yes, the lawyers of the Pentagon's General Counsel and the acting head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel said he does need to consult with Congress. So, it's true that he made his decision against their advice.
But he got the opposite opinion from the White House Counsel and from the State Department's Legal adviser. And remember . . . Obama himself is a constitutional expert and has taught constitutional law at one of the nation's top law schools.
So . . . enough with implying that President Obama is grabbing power and "over-ruling" all legal advice. This is a matter in great dispute about which good legal minds obviously disagree. It might require the Supreme Court to settle it.
Ralph
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Now criticism from progressive circles is becoming even more strident. A Huffington Post blog likened it to Bush defying his legal advisers over warrantless wiretapping, when his legal team threatened to resign (except for Gonzales and Cheney's legal counsel, David Addington, who urged him on).
ReplyDeleteAnd they went even further, recalling the Saturday Night Massacre when the Attorney General, and then the second in command at Justice, actually resigned rather than carry out Nixon's order to fire Archibald Cox, who was the Watergate investigator.
These are exaggerated comparisons. The first has to do with violating the actual rights to privacy of American citizens. The second was the investigation of crimes carried out by the Nixon Administration.
I'm not sure what I would decide personally about the basic question; but this is a dispute over whether Obama has to get Congressional approval for our operations in Libya. It's a constitutional question about which there are different opinions.
I'm having second thoughts after reading an editorial in today's New York Times by Yale Law School's Bruce Ackerman.
ReplyDeleteHe points out that the Office of Legal Counsel is usually considered the authoritative voice on legal interpretations involving the presidency and that the President's Counsel is a simple appointment not requiring Senate confirmation and who serves at the pleasure of the president. Therefore, it's more likely to be someone chosen by the president who agrees with him and who is answerable only to him.
Ackerman is not making the case necessarily that our assistance to the Libyan rebels is itself bad or a personal grab for power. But his concern is that it sets a precedent that future president's may cite in order to justify some action that is more a grab for power.
I have to agree. And I don't know why Obama is holding out. Perhaps he has made agreements with our NATA allies that he doesn't want to have to go back on, and he thinks Republicans will vote against him, regardless of the issue itself.